Технический университет Мюнхена: История и эволюция

Public research university in Munich, Germany

In 1868, King Ludwig II of Bavaria founded the Polytechnische Schule München with Karl Maximilian von Bauernfeind as founding director. The new school had its premises at Arcisstraße, where it is still located today. At that time, around 350 students were supervised by 24 professors and 21 lecturers. The institution was divided into six departments: The "General Department" (mathematics, natural sciences, humanities, law and economics), the "Engineering Department" (civil engineering and surveying), the "Building Construction Department" (architecture), the "Mechanical Technical Department" (mechanical engineering), the "Chemical Technical Department" (chemistry), and the "Agricultural Department". In 1877, the Polytechnische Schule München became the Technische Hochschule München (TH München), and in 1901 it was granted the right to award doctorates. With an average of 2,600 to 2,800 students, the TH München became for a time Germany's largest technical university, ahead of the TH Berlin. In 1970 the institution was renamed Technische Universität München.

In 1906, Anna Boyksen became the first female student to enroll in electrical engineering, after the Bavarian government had allowed women to study at technical universities in the German Empire. Martha Schneider Bürger became the first German female civil engineer to graduate from the university in 1927. In 1913, Jonathan Zenneck became director of the newly created Physics Institute. During the Weimar Republic, the TH München faced the challenge of limited resources and was drawn into radical political conflicts during the November Revolution, the Great Depression, and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Two of the 16 Nazis killed in Hitler's failed coup attempt in 1923 were students at the university. The National Socialist German Students' League became the strongest faction in the General Students' Committee in 1930, and Jewish and politically unpopular professors were terrorized by the young students. After Hitler took power, the TH was soon aligned and a "Führer rector" was appointed, with the deans directly responsible to him. The Führerprinzip was also imposed on universities, resulting in a significant restriction of the autonomy of the TH München. In 1933, the newly enacted Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service led to the dismissal of staff deemed "non Aryan" or married to "non Aryans," as well as politically "undesirable" professors. Jewish students lost their rights and were banned from enrolling after 1938. The university was deeply involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime. For instance, Heinz Henseler, a professor in charge of animal breeding at the university, headed a new "Colonial Science Seminar" from 1940. The seminar focused on exploring how to "Germanize" the landscapes of Poland and Russia for future colonization and settlement during the war. The entire Faculty of Agriculture was influenced by the ideology of blood and soil, and agricultural scientists had no qualms about using forced laborers and prisoners of war on university experimental farms. Henseler repeatedly asked his former student and SS chief Heinrich Himmler for additional land and led several excursions to the SS herb garden on the grounds of the Dachau concentration camp with his students.

During the war, 80 percent of the university's facilities in Munich had been destroyed. Under these difficult conditions, teaching resumed in April 1946. In 1956, the construction of a research reactor in Garching was the beginning of the Garching campus. In 1969, the physics department building was opened there, followed in 1977 by new buildings for the chemistry, biology and geoscience departments. In 1967, a Faculty of Medicine was founded with campuses in Haidhausen (Rechts der Isar Hospital) and Schwabing. By 1968, the TH München comprised six faculties, 8,400 students, and 5,700 staff. In 1972, the Zentrale Hochschulsportanlage, a 45 hectare sports center, was built on the grounds of the 1972 Summer Olympics. In 1970, the TH München was renamed to its present name Technische Universität München. When the Bavarian Higher Education Act came into force in 1974, the six faculties were replaced by eleven departments. In 1992, the field of computer science was established as an independent Department of Informatics, having previously been part of the Department of Mathematics since 1967.

In 2002, TUM Asia was founded in Singapore, in cooperation with the Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore. It was the first time that a German university had established a subsidiary abroad. The Department of Sport and Health Sciences and the School of Management were established in 2002. The Weihenstephan departments were combined into the "Weihenstephan Centre of Life and Food Sciences" (WZW), which would later become the School of Life Sciences. With the establishment of the School of Education in 2009, the School of Governance in 2016 and the Department of Aerospace and Geodesy in 2018, the university comprises 15 schools and departments. Since the inception of the German Universities Excellence Initiative in 2006, TUM has won every round of evaluation and the title University of Excellence.

TUM's academic faculties are divided amongst numerous campuses.

The historic Main Campus (Stammgelände) is located in Maxvorstadt, the central borough of Munich. Today, the departments of Architecture, Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Schools of Management, Governance, Education are located here. The TUM School of Medicine is located at the site of its university hospital, the Rechts der Isar Hospital, in the district of Haidhausen. The TUM Department of Sport and Health Sciences is located in the Olympiapark, the former site of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

The campus in Garching, located around 10 km north of Munich, has grown to become the largest TUM campus. In the last decades, the departments of Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Informatics and Mathematics have all relocated from their former buildings in the Main Campus. They have since been joined by numerous research institutes, including the Max Planck Institutes for Plasma Physics, Astrophysics, Extraterrestrial Physics and Quantum Optics, the Forschungsreaktor München II (FRM II), the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, one of the fastest supercomputers in Europe. A landmark of the Garching campus is the Oskar von Miller Tower, a meteorological measurement tower with a height of 62 m. The Garching campus is connected to Munich by the Autobahn and the Munich U Bahn. It has its own fire department.

The third TUM campus is located 35 km north of Munich in Weihenstephan, Freising. It hosts the School of Life Sciences.

Additional TUM facilities are located in Ottobrunn (Department of Aerospace and Geodesy), Straubing, Heilbronn, and Singapore.

TUM operates a subsidiary in Singapore. In 2001, the German Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) – TUM Asia was founded in partnership with the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University, offering a range of Master's programs. In 2010, TUM Asia started offering bachelor's degrees in collaboration with the Singapore Institute of Technology. In 2010, TUM and the Nanyang Technological University founded TUMCREATE, a research platform for the improvement of Singapore's public transportation.

The Student Council is the main body for university wide student representation. It elects the General Student Committee (AStA), which represents the professional, economic and social interests of the students, by the Bavarian Higher Education Act. Each school or department will also have a separate Departmental Student Council. Every year, university elections are held to elect student representatives in the Senate, the university's highest academic authority, and in the faculty councils.

The Student Council organizes a number of annual festivals and events. TUNIX and GARNIX are week long open air festivals held every summer. TUNIX is held at the Königsplatz near the Munich campus, while GARNIX is held at the Garching campus. GLÜHNIX is a christmas market held in front of the Department of Mechanical Engineering every December. MaiTUM is a Bavarian Maifest, held at the Main Campus in May each year.

The Zentrale Hochschulsportanlage (ZHS) is the largest university sports facility in Germany, offering hundreds of different sports programs. Music ensembles at TUM include the TUM Chamber Orchestra, the TUM Jazz Band, the TUM Choir, and the Symphonisches Ensemble München, a full size symphony orchestra.